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Sunday, February 7, 2010

My plant at home isn't doing anything exciting, and WCW (who also bought one of these when they came in) said hers isn't either, but the three plants remaining at work (There were six to begin with, which means that one was actually purchased by a customer! This is very exciting!) have all decided to bloom. Not that the inflorescences are anything to get terribly excited about --

-- but we've certainly seen worse.

Will my plant flower at home? I'm not going to hold my breath. I'd be okay with it if the plant wanted to, though, especially if lots of offsets ensued.

15 comments:

The foliage alone is beautiful enough...but to see that bloomnig stalk! So Mr_Subj...are you on their hotline when something exciting is about to happen at the greenhouse or do you visit on a regular schedule..lol!

Hmmm, perhaps the inflorescence will color up as it matures? (Never had nor have seen this particular species before.)

If you ever truly get antsy for a bloom, you can always give it the "apple treatment". Don't know if it is common to all Vriesea or just to my V. spendens, but I was told (and mine followed in stereotypical fashion) that V splendens typically only forms one pup. And again mine did just that after blooming -- right from the center of the mother plant.

Well, there are some Vrieseas with yellow inflorescences; I wouldn't be surprised if this was the only color it ever got.

Probably the apple thing would work; I've never tried it with any of my bromeliads (which somehow I have wound up with sixty of them, says the spreadsheet), but I'm okay with V. ospinae, etc., staying like it is for as long as it wants to.

I know not all Vrieseas offset from the center, because I bought one of the smaller hybrid varieties specifically because it had five offsets on it. This particular plant, though, looks a lot more like V. splendens than it does like the five-offsetting hybrid. We'll see.

I like it. I'm going with yellow inflorescence. Who knows tho, maybe pink? I'm using banana peels on my Ananas Broms. It's not working however. I've also heard epsom salts dressing on the soil can help poke a reluctant Bromeliad along. I think light levels have much to do with it along with maybe a little free will of the plant.

Small world indeed. Is yours blooming, perchance? I was in there today, and WCW told me that hers at home had started to.

(Mine still isn't doing anything. I like it anyway.)

The Plantman:

WCW did say that she had hers basically right next to a huge artificial light, so it could well be a lighting issue as much as anything. My plant is fairly close to what I think is a pretty bright artificial light, plus it gets a little natural light, so maybe that's not all. But it wouldn't surprise me if light was a big part, at least.

As far as the banana thing: I haven't ever heard of using bananas for inducing blooms. Bananas ripen faster in the presence of ethylene (the gas apples produce), but I didn't think they produced any themselves. I suppose I should look this up.

Karen715:

It's okay. They have some mixed colors of small Vriesea hybrids at ex-work now, offsets of an old order that are now mature enough to flower on their own, and there's a pretty neat dark purple and dark red among them. The yellow doesn't do that much for me, but to each his/r own, I guess.

I always get very excited whenever my foliage plants bloom, eventhough the flower may be green, or small or hardly noticeable. I alwyas take it as a good sign. I have tried the apple peel treatment on my potted pineapple plant at 18 mths and it worked.

Mr. S, yes bananas produce ethylene -- all fruit which ripen in response to enthylene also produce it, it is a positive feed back thing. Bananas produce lots and lots of it. Also, as far as I know, it works on the whole bromeliad family -- it is standard practice in commercial production of flowering bromeliads.

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Mr_Subjunctive used to work at a family-owned greenhouse / garden center in Iowa City, IA. As of 7 December 2016, he has 1588 houseplants, which is both too damn many and not quite enough. Most are Anthuriums.

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